


Love and Other Rebellions

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: Damerey Resistance [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Rey, One Shot, Smut, Whumptober 2019, Worried Poe, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 19:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Poe and Rey haven't exactly defined the thing that's happening between them - Poe only knows that he's happy, beyond happy, whenever he's with her. He figures they'll have time to work it out later. The war's over, after all, and they have time.He forgets though, that even outside of war, life is never safe when you're the last Jedi.(Rey gets injured on a mission and General Dameron doesn't respond Very Well)





	Love and Other Rebellions

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings**
> 
> Reference to **character death** Leia Organa dies off-screen/before the start of fic, and Poe is now General (Although yes he'd be Admiral, but bear with me here)
> 
> Injury/non-graphic description of injury and blood
> 
> Some not-quite-explicit smut! At the start and at the end. This is very much the "I'm so happy you're not dead, so let's have sex" trope.

“I’m not breakable, you know.”

Poe didn’t pause in what he was doing; he skimmed his mouth along Rey’s hipbone and smiled gently into the pale patch of moonlight. 

“I know.” His fingers stayed light on her body as he shifted, his tongue barely tracing a pattern over her sensitive skin.

Rey squirmed and then sighed, her fingers tangling in his hair, tugging enough to make him groan. 

“ _ Poe. _ ”

“Yeah?” He was drunk on her, punchdrunk like the first time he hit Hyperspace as a green cadet. Dizzying, mesmerizing, intoxicating: everything he tasted and smelled and felt was Rey, and it was dangerous. 

Dangerous because they’d only been doing this for three months; dangerous because this was a temporary thing; dangerous because of their line of work; dangerous because he was technically her commanding officer; dangerous because he was half in love with her before they fell into bed, and now he was so far gone he didn’t think he’d ever find a way out of loving her. 

“Could you _please get_ _on with it already—_” Rey had grown up far away from any semblance of civilization, he knew, something that made her coarse and demanding where so many of his past lovers had been obliging and patient. It thrilled him to no end, how enthusiastic and frank and single-minded she was when he ended up between her legs. But right now, he was thrilled by how _irritated _she got when he took his damn time. 

“Patience, Master Rey.” He huffed a laugh into the core of her when she tugged more viciously on his hair. “Gods, you’re sweet.”

“I am  _ not  _ sweet.”

He grinned and let himself soak up her taste with a serenity belied by the unholy groan that dragged out of him. Rey practically jackknifed off the bed, and she unleashed a string of Huttese curses that would have made the roughest smuggler blush.

“Taste sweet to me,” he commented dryly, licking his lips for effect as he met Rey’s eyes. 

“You are  _ impossible. _ ” She tilted her hips up towards his face and grumbled something under her breath, something about  _ we have to report in twenty-five minutes, banthabreath,  _ and he chuckled once more before applying himself with a little more urgency. 

And, no matter Rey’s protests, he had time to make her come twice on his tongue before she rolled him onto his back and rode him hard enough to make him bite that talented tongue.

* * *

Being with the savior of the galaxy wasn’t something Poe thought about actively; it was just something that  _ happened,  _ and happened quickly after the fall of the First Order. They weren’t even officially together, not really, not with the schedules they both kept, the demands on Rey to maintain balance and the demands on Poe to lead the Resistance and help unify the New Republic again. 

They’d never gotten around to talking about  _ what  _ they were doing - they only had time to do it, something that Poe figured would be smoothed out later, later when they had time, later when things were less confusing. Poe figured he would tell her  _ later  _ how he felt, that he would have to wait a while to let her know that he loved her, that when he closed his eyes and thought about his future, it was her in every frame, that when he thought about family, it was Kes and Finn and Black Squadron and Rey, always Rey, Rey in the middle of it all, giving everything new weight and new meaning. 

He just had to wait until the right time to tell her how much he loved her. How he wanted to marry her. How he wanted more than soft, fleeting moments in one of their bunks when no one needed one or both of them. 

They just needed a bit of time.

It was six days into Rey’s visit to an Outer Rim planet that Poe remembered  _ why  _ a pilot in the Resistance and the last of the Jedi shouldn’t ever bank on  _ a bit of time.  _

* * *

“General Dameron?”

The title still didn’t sit right, even a year after Leia’s death. Poe released a breath and nodded at Connix.

“Yes, Major?”

“We have an incoming distress signal, sir.” He turned to face the holoboard, and blanched when he saw the coordinates. “From-”

“Ryloth.”

“Yes sir.”

“Play it.” He set his jaw and ignored the sympathetic look Kaydel shot him before she allowed the message through.

Rey appeared immediately, a hologram transmission of flickering blue that did nothing to capture her natural beauty; it was still clear enough to make his stomach clench with anxiety, and when he walked towards the hologram, he could more clearly see that she was clutching her side, where her tunic seemed to be stained with something dark. Poe tried not to think about it and tried to listen to what she was saying. 

“...after tangling with some Gutkurrs, I can confirm that the settlement has experienced an attack, but I can’t find any Twi’leks at the moment. There were a few signs of life when I landed, but now I’m starting to fear that someone or something is attempting to round up the Twi’leks outside the main cities for the slave trade or - who’s there?” Rey turned, her golden, dual-sided lightsaber flashing to life, dull in the hologram.

Poe took an unconscious step toward the hologram. 

“Kriffing  _ hell, _ ” Rey swore vehemently. “More gutkurrs-” 

A massive creature flashed across the screen, blocking Rey from view; it stood on two legs and loomed over the Jedi, and the rest of the transmission was the flickering sight of Rey trying to hold off the creature, which snarled and roared loud enough to make a few cadets flinch in the Control Center. 

Rey was knocked backwards violently, slipping out of frame, and the Gutkurr roared one, last, horrible time.

And the transmission went dark.

Cold trickled from Poe’s chest to his fingertips, draining the room of any sort of heat, leeching the strength from his muscles. He said nothing for a long moment.

“General?”

“Is she still there?” He asked, too quietly to be heard.

“Sorry, General Dameron?”

“Is she still there?” He stood at his full height and looked to Major Connix. “Is Rey - is Master Rey still able to receive transmissions?”

Kaydel nodded and typed furiously for a few moments and then shook her head, apologetic but still stoic. “No sir.”

“Try again.”

“Sir, her comms are offli-” The scowl he wore was part-Leia Organa, part-Scourge of the First Order, and Connix nodded again and retyped her commands. “Sorry, General. Still no response.”

“Kriff.” He wiped a hand down his face, trying not to let Connix, or any of the other commanding officers see how the galaxy had shifted underneath him. 

He had half a mind to go running to the nearest X-Wing and jump in, fly to Ryloth himself, fight the gutkurrs, save Rey, be the hero.

But he wasn’t the hero. Rey was the hero - and Finn was the hero, Finn, who was off-world on another diplomatic mission and not here to get him to take a few calming breaths - and he was the General. They didn’t need him in a cockpit. They needed him here. 

_ Kriff. Kriffing karking banthaball motherfucking wompashite - _

The room spun around him dangerously, and he sagged into the chair he’d never seen much use for in the last year. He dragged his hands through his hair once, twice, and then nodded. 

“Send a rescue squad. Yellow Squadron was doing drills around Shimia an hour ago; they should be refueling there now. They can be on Ryloth in a few minutes.”

“Yes sir.” 

Connix geared up the transmission, and Poe gave his command code, and then all he could do was wait, wait and robotically respond to the dozen and a half concerns that filtered through the Command Center over the next hour, his hands clenching the sides of his chair to the point where he was sure he was denting the metal. At some point, Connix told him Yellow Squadron had landed, but even that barely got through to him - he focused instead on trying to solve a snafu in the other corner of the galaxy, one involving an irate missionary and a confused diplomat.

Then, a crackle of static over the open comms and:

“ _ Command, this is Yellow Two, _ ” Poe stood shakily, and Connix signaled that he was good to respond at will, “ _ Yellow Two requesting flight clearance, over.”  _

“Yellow Two, this is Command.” Poe barely recognized his voice. “What’s happening down there?”

“ _ The squadron medic is administering aid to the Jedi, sir. She’s in bad shape. _ ”

The spinning in the room got worse. Poe regretted standing up. “Do you need medical evac?”

“ _ No sir. The Jedi keeps insisting that she’s fine, sir, but it’s our medic’s opinion that she needs to be stabilized before we -” _

There was the sound of shouting in the background of the transmission, and Poe tensed, remembering what Rey had said about raids on Ryloth. Then, he recognized the voice shouting and relaxed somewhat.

“ _ Yes, ma’am. Sorry, Master Rey. We uh - we should be wheel’s up in fifteen, sir, if we’re cleared to land at base in the next two hours.” _

“Of course you are, Yellow Two. Are you gonna bring the Jedi back in one piece?” He tried to sound light-hearted, like he wasn’t being  _ ripped apart by the fear of Rey bleeding out before she could get there safely,  _ like he wasn’t terrified of  _ Rey dying on a distant planet without ever knowing he loved her  _ -

In the background, Poe could hear: “ _ YOU? BRING  _ ME _ BACK? LET ME OFF THIS TABLE, MOSLOX, WE’LL SEE WHO HAS TO CARRY WHOSE SORRY ASS BACK TO-” _

Yellow Two, Commander Moslox, cleared his throat.  _ “Yes, sir. I think … I think Master Rey will be coming back in one piece. She wants you to know that she’s fine except for some bruises … and cuts ... and a few broken ribs that the medic is patching right now…” _

_ “OH, WHY NOT JUST TELL HIM THAT I ALMOST GOT DISEMBOWELED, WHY DID I BOTHER ASKING YOU NOT TO TELL HIM-” _

If Poe were still the kind of person who could faint, he would have fainted at the thought of the word  _ disembowel  _ anywhere near Rey.

“ _ ...We’ll be there in two hours, sir _ .”

“I’ll see you then, Yellow Two.” Poe sank back down into his chair, trembling from the sudden clash of relief and fear and anxiety, the anxiety he’d been barely holding back for the last hour. He tried not to think about  _ disemboweling  _ or  _ broken ribs  _ or  _ Gutkurr attacks _ .

He failed miserably.

* * *

“Yellow Squadron, you’re cleared to land.” Connix signaled to the lieutenant to finish his clearance code, and then she turned to Poe, smirking in a way that could only promise trouble. “Permission to give my opinion?”

“Don’t see why you’re suddenly asking now, Connix.” Poe took another deep, calming breath, one of hundreds in the last nail-biting four hours.

“Maybe you should be there.” Connix had her hands clasped behind her back, and her face was typically stoic. “To greet them.” Poe blushed and nodded. “Before you rip another cadet’s head off. Sir.”

Poe tilted his head at her with a scowl, and Connix shrugged, a small smile playing at her mouth. Poe sighed and threw his hands in the air. 

“Alright. You think you can handle things here for a half hour? Until I can see what shape our Jedi is in?”

“Yes, sir.” Connix was still smiling. “I can keep an eye on things for the next three hours until you see how your Jedi is doing.”

Later, Poe would swear his face erupted in flames. “ _ Major Connix.” _

“General Dameron.” She turned to her computer. “They’re landing now, sir. If you wanted to be there when they disembarked.”

Two years ago, he would have spluttered in protest. Instead, he took his exit with as much dignity as possible, stalking to the hangar bay without a word past the order for the lower officers to follow Connix’s commands in his absence.

With every step he took, it felt like his carefully composed facade of calm crumbled more and more.  _ She could have died. You could be going to retrieve her body right now. She could have died.  _

By the time he found himself in front of Yellow Squadron’s docking bay, he’d thoroughly worked himself up — not an anomaly, to be fair, but also worse than usual — and was gripping his hands together behind his back while the various members of Yellow Squadron climbed out of their cockpits. 

Last, out of the tandem X-Wing, came the Jedi herself, eyes bleary, face bruised, and hand gripping her side where her tunic had been torn and a pile of bacta patches applied. 

Everything Por had planned on saying flew out of his head at the sight of her. Every scolding reprimand, every joke, every attempt to downplay his anxiety, it all left his head at the sight of Rey wincing, pale-faced and weary, clutching her injured side. 

His hands were shaking as he moved to help her down the ladder.

“What? No, ‘m fine, Poe, really.” Rey seemed embarrassed in her exhaustion, but she didn’t push his hands away as he started to run them, still shaking furiously, over her arms and shoulders, then so delicately over her side. “Hey, flyboy, I’m fine.” 

“You—“ his voice strangled then shattered, and he bit his tongue. The rest of the Squadron shuffled away, clearly unsure how to handle the sight of their general on the brink of tears, all of them except the medic.

“She will be fine, sir.” The medic offered Rey a smile. “Already mostly healed up. Right, Rey?”

She nodded and smiled back at him, but her smile slipped into a frown when the medic turned away whistling and Poe didn’t lift his eyes from the bandage on her side. 

“Poe?”

“You-” He couldn’t get past the first word again.

“Me.” Rey pulled his hands away from her side and grinned at him. “In one piece, as promised.”

“You almost died.” Poe growled when she opened her mouth to argue. “ _ You almost died _ .”

“Yes, well.” Rey tugged on the front of his uniform, the olive green one she teased him for, but as far as he was aware, she was very much fond of (and fond of taking off of him). “I didn’t.”

“Rey.” He tore his hands through his hair before gripping her wrists, and Rey frowned at him, less jovial now. “If you had - if you didn’t - if I never -”

“Maybe we should talk in private,” Rey suggested, looking around at the small crowd they were attracting. “Your quarters?”

“Yes.” Poe nodded and cleared his throat. “Right. You probably want to rest-”

“Not really.” Rey smirked at him, and Poe snorted, half-irate at how unbothered she seemed at her brush with death. “Let’s go.”

Never one for tact, Rey started forward, more or less dragging Poe behind her as she walked through the crowd. His thoughts kept causing his feet to stumble, too distracted by the lingering fear and disbelief that she was really here, really safe. Then, he saw her face as they neared his quarters, halfway between Command and the hangar.

Drawn and pale still, now she was wincing in pain, her free hand going probably subconsciously to her injured side. “Rey.” He tugged on her hand until she looked over at him, but she didn’t stop walking. “ _ Rey. _ ”

He stopped suddenly, and her hand almost slipped free; Rey spun on her heel to face him. ”You’re hurt, Sunshine. Let’s go a little slower—“

“Let’s just go,” she said with an odd urgency. “C’mon, we don’t need to go any slower, I’m not dying or anything—“

“But you could have.” His temper flared, stoked by exhaustion and anxiety. “I saw you get knocked over — you’re still bleeding. Rey, you almost got  _ disemboweled _ .”

“That word is being tossed around a lot today,” Rey said with a roll of her tired eyes. “When really-”

Poe growled, and Rey cut herself off, looking surprised. “Take it seriously,” he demanded. “You could have died, Rey, so take it kriffing seriously,  _ please,  _ if you have any respect for my sanity.”

“Your sanity?” Rey questioned him with a half-smile, confusion clear in her face. “I - I don’t think I totally understand, why do you care if I’m taking my not-even-that-close brush with death seriously or not?”

“You have no idea?” Poe questioned right back, taking a step towards Rey. The narrow corridor assured that her back hit the wall, but he hung back by a thread, wanting to crowd into her, not wanting to make her feel trapped, wanting to touch her somehow. “You really have no idea why I’d be so afraid of you dying?”

“I didn’t die,” Rey sighed, shaking her head in fond exasperation. “Honestly, I came a lot closer to death a hundred times on Jakku.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.” Poe laughed. It was a choked sound. His gaze darted between her hazel eyes and her soft, pink mouth, currently parted in confusion. “It makes it -  _ gods,  _ if you’d died, Rey, I don’t know what I’d-” He groaned again and kissed her, figuring that if the words weren’t coming out right, he had other ways of communicating.

Rey squeaked a little before tangling her hands in his hair, and within seconds, she rocked her hips against his.

“ _ Yes, _ ” she hissed, as he dove to her neck to press kisses so sharp they could have been bites to the thin skin there. Her breath caught and staggered in her throat, and he chased it with his tongue. “Poe -  _ yes _ -”

“You have no idea.” Poe pulled away, hands still tight on her hips, panting for air. “No idea, do you?”

“I’m starting to get the idea.” Rey surged in and kissed him again. “And I’m not dead, flyboy, let me show you.”

“No.” He shook his head and gripped her hands where they were clutching his uniform. “No, I’m going to show you.”

Dumbfounded but clearly delighted, Rey let him pull her towards his quarters, the last few hundred yards of corridor disappearing quickly as his pace sped up, his earlier concerns of going too fast forgotten in the surge of want in his veins. 

He was careful of her injured side when he hauled her into his arms, seconds after the doors to his quarters hissed shut behind them; careful of her bruises and scrapes as he laid her down on the bed. He was careful as far as he had to be careful to ensure no further injury came to her person, but then - later, in moments of reflection, he would admit it - he was a man possessed, hands skating over every inch of exposed skin, which was quite a lot after he pulled her tunic free of her head and threw it across the room with a nearly angered growl. Rey was quick to tug his uniform off, and their skin pressed together made his blood sing as he buried his face in the curve of her neck and slipped a hand between them.

Rey, always so capable of keeping up, always so enthusiastic and sharp, seemed to grow hotter under his hands, hotter and louder than he could ever recall, and they nearly fell off the bed as he finally slid into her. The galaxy turned red behind his eyelids as he gasped out her name, hand slamming into the durasteel wall of his quarters, the bunk rattling with every thrust, and Rey clutching him tight enough to bruise.

And he  _ wanted  _ it to bruise, wanted the memory to be seared into his skin, wanted to turn in the ‘fresher tomorrow and see evidence that Rey was alive, that she was alive and had chosen him, and it was with that thought that he pressed his mouth to hers and sobbed out a confession that he’d only taken months to practice in the mirror.

“You too,” Rey gasped, head thrown back so he could kiss along the elegant lines of her neck. “I -  _ oh,  _ Poe-”

When it was over, and they were still wrapped around each other, gasping for air, chests flushed, Poe stroked hair out of her face with more tenderness than he’d shown her in his desperation, and Rey nudged his thumb and made him laugh, a laugh that bordered on a sob.

“I love you,” he repeated, voice hoarse and embarrassed from how easily it had slipped from him in the heat of their lovemaking. He couldn’t even think to be embarrassed at the term because that’s what it had been, even if he’d been half-mad throughout. “Gods, I love you, and if you had died-”

“I didn’t.” Rey took his hand firmly in her own and pressed her lips to his palm. “Honestly, Dameron. I’m still here.” He nodded, too choked up to protest further, and then she smiled at him shyly. “I - I’ve never said this out loud before.”

“Hm?” He looked away from her bandaged side, as he’d been trying to gauge if he’d upset the bacta patches too much in his passion.

“I love you.” Rey said the words carefully, as though showing off a good find at the marketplace. She said them protectively, possessively, and she said them while watching his face with a pained hopefulness he understood all too well. 

Poe ran his fingers through her tangled hair again, leaving his fingers resting on the miraculous pulsepoint on her neck, and mortifyingly enough, began to cry.

“Yeah.” Rey giggled and rolled over with a soft groan, sliding her leg between his and resting halfway on his body. “That’s about right.” And she kissed him again, and Poe let himself forget what it ever was to fear. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, xoxo


End file.
